Article

The EU’s Enfants Terribles: Democratic Backsliding in Central Europe since 2010 Elisabeth Bakke and Nick Sitter

In the academic literature, Hungary and Poland are often cited as paradigmatic cases of democratic backsliding. However, as the backsliding narrative gained traction, the term has been applied to the rest of the post-communist region, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We suggest that this diagnosis is in part based on conceptual stretching, and set out to rescue the concept as an analytical tool. We then assess the extent of backsliding in the four Visegrád countries, explaining backsliding (and the relative lack of it) in terms of motive, opportunity, and the strength or weakness of opposing or constraining forces. We conclude that the situation is not as desperate as some commentators would have it: democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland was contingent on a few exceptional factors, and EU leaders therefore need not be paralysed by the fear of contagion when they contemplate forceful action against backsliding member states.

Every family has an enfant terrible. But as I am a Christian and set out on a similar path. However, unlike Fidesz, the Democrat, I prefer to keep my enfant terrible inside the family new PiS government did not enjoy a constitution-altering and to be able to talk and reason with him. — Joseph Daul1 supermajority, and soon clashed with the constitutional court. Four years on, the party retained its majority in the n February 2019, Freedom House downgraded Hun- Sejm, but narrowly lost control of the Senate. gary from Free to Partly Free, referring to “sustained Meanwhile in Slovakia, Robert Fico’s Smer – Social I ’ attacks on the country s democratic institutions by Prime Democrats won a majority of the seats in the March 2012 Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, which had used its election, but did not go down the same path. Instead, Fico parliamentary supermajority to impose restrictions on or “went out of his way” to demonstrate his commitment to assert control over the opposition, the media, religious pluralistic democracy (Valášek 2012). Having lost the major- groups, academia, NGOs, the courts, asylum seekers, and ity in 2016, Fico quickly struck a deal with the Slovak the private sector since 2010” (Freedom House 2019). National Party (SNS) and the ethnic Hungarian Most– Amonth later the European People’s Party (EPP) sus- Híd (Bridge) party.2 The murder of investigative journalist pended the membership of Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová in February Alliance, on the grounds of democratic backsliding. In 2018 sparked big demonstrations in all major cities, forcing Poland, Jarosław Kaczyński’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) him to resign, but the coalition struggled on. A Financial won a majority of the seats in the October 2015 elections Times editorial described the victory of the liberal

*Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/4A8LOT

Elisabeth Bakke is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Oslo, Norway ([email protected]). Her research interests include democracy and (de-) democratization, nationalism, European politics, Czech and Slovak politics, parties, and parliamentary elites. She is the author (with Nick Sitter) of Why Do Parties Fail? Cleavages, Government Fatigue and Electoral Failure in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary 1992–2012 and Where Do Parties Go When They Die? The Fate of Failed Parties in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary 1992–2013, which appeared in East European Politics.

Nick Sitter is Professor of Political Economy at the BI Norwegian Business School’s Department of Law and Governance, and Professor of Public Policy at Central European University’s School of Public Policy ([email protected]). His research interests include European party politics, democratic backsliding, and populism, as well as terrorism and energy policy. His books include A Liberal Actor in A Realist World: The EU Regulatory State and the Global Political Economy of Energy with Andreas Goldthau (Oxford University Press, 2015), Terrorismens Historie (Dreyer, 2017), and Energy Union: Europe’s New Liberal Mercantilism? with Andreas Goldthau and Svein Andersen (Palgrave, 2017).

doi:10.1017/S1537592720001292 © American Political Science Association 2020. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

anticorruption activist Zuzana Čaputová in the March 2019 corruption scandals, populism, clientelism, polarised pol- presidential elections as “arayofhope” and “acausefor itical debate, and large-scale demonstrations shook both celebration in a region where authoritarianism and crony countries. All four went back on commitments they made capitalism are sadly becoming the norm” (Financial Times when they joined the EU, notably to address discrimination 2019b). Slovakia had been a democratic laggard under on the grounds of gender and disability (Krizsan and Rogge- Vladimír Mečiar’s leadership (1994–1998), but by 2019 it band 2018; Grzebalska and Pető 2018). However, when it was among the most democratic post-communist EU mem- comes to undermining the fundamental rules of the game in an ber states.3 existing democracy the Czech and Slovak cases remain closer In the Czech Republic, the controversial billionaire and to the Italian “second republic” (ca. 1994–2018) than the leader of the ANO (“yes”) party Andrej Babiš attracted radical de-democratization pushed through in Hungary and considerable criticism as prime minister. ANO came first Poland. The problems in the Czech case—weak parties, low in the October 2017 election, but after failing to win the trust in government institutions, fragile coalitions, low party investiture vote Babiš formed a minority government with membership (Guasti and Mansfeldová 2018;seealsoBalík the Czech Social Democratic Party that depended on et al. 2016, and Vachudová 2019)—aremoreamatterof Communist support. Meanwhile the lower house had hollowing out than backsliding. voted to strip Babiš of his immunity to allow the police In line with much of the literature on democratization, to investigate his role in the EU subsidies fraud case we focus on agency—and what agents actually achieve. In associated with the “Stork’s nest”, a subsidiary of his order to backslide, power-holders need motive, opportunity, company Agrofert. By 2020 the charges against his family and the absence of constraints. We start with a brief review of members had been dropped, but the public prosecutor had the literature on democratic backsliding and an operational reopened the subsidy fraud case against Babiš (Politico definition of the concept. The second section maps back- 2019). Although the prime minister has repeatedly dis- sliding in the Visegrád Four, with some comparisons to missed the charges as a conspiracy, this is a far cry from Mečiar’s Slovakia and Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy. The third Fidesz and PiS-style assertions that the judiciary must section explains variations in backsliding in terms of motive, operate in the interest of the government. opportunity, and the strength of opposing or constraining Hungary and Poland are paradigmatic cases of demo- forces. The conclusion assesses the limits to backsliding. cratic backsliding (Scheppele 2016, 2018; Sitter et al. 2016; Kovács and Scheppele 2018; Grzymala-Busse What Is Democratic Backsliding? 2019). However, as the backsliding narrative gained traction, The literature on democracy has come full circle since the term has been widely applied to the post-communist 1989, when Francis Fukuyama predicted “the end of region (Cianetti, Dawson, and Hanley 2018;Hanleyand history as such: that is … the universalization of Western Vachudova 2018;Pehe2018;Mesežnikov and Gyárfášová liberal democracy as the final form of human government” 2018;Vachudová2019). The early optimism is gone; “the (Fukuyama 1989, 4). The end of communist rule was narrative of progress in the region is dead, replaced by demo- widely seen as the culmination of Samuel Huntington’s cratic backsliding—and even sliding into authoritarianism” (1991) third wave of democratisation. Already in 1996 (Hanley and Vachudová 2018,276);“theideathatdem- Larry Diamond asked if it was over, while Michael McFaul ocracy is backsliding in East-Central Europe is fast becom- (2002) regarded post-communist cases as a fourth wave of ing the consensus view” (Dawson and Hanley 2016,21). transitions, to democracy and dictatorship. The notion of As Merkel (2010, 19) pointed out, this optimism was in “democratic recession” has been debated (Levitsky and part based on conceptual stretching. Many scholars applied Way 2015; Merkel 2010), but V-Dem data demonstrate the democracy label to regimes that were in effect hybrid that a wave of autocratization is currently unfolding regimes. We argue that the current “democratic backsliding” (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019). narrative is based on a similar kind of conceptual stretching, Much like the over-production of qualifying adjectives nowerringintheoppositedirection.Morespecifically, some to democracy in the 1990s and 2000s (Giebler, Ruth, and scholars fail to distinguish between backsliding and hollow- Tannenberg 2018), scholars have invented a number of ing out, and between liberal democracy and liberalism. terms to capture its degradation (Daly 2019). Democratic We set out to rescue the concept as an analytical tool, backsliding has gained the most traction (Waldner & Lust and then assess to what extent it applies to the four 2018; Jee, Lueders, and Myrick 2019), and is most Visegrád states. We define “democratic backsliding” as a commonly understood as deliberate departure from dem- process of deliberate, intended action designed to gradually ocracy and the rule of law, or in the words of Nancy undermine the fundamental rules of the game in an existing Bermeo (2016,6)“the state-led debilitation or elimination democracy, carried out by a democratically elected govern- of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing ment, and argue that, by 2020, both PiS and Fidesz4 democracy” (see also Bugarič & Ginsberg 2016; Foa & qualified, whereas no substantial backsliding had (yet) Mounk 2017; Levitsky & Ziblatt 2018; Mechkova et al. occurred in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. To be sure, 2017; Pech & Scheppele 2017; Sitter & Bakke 2019).

2 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Others have focused on “bad governance” (Carothers states where the governments have driven the process so far 2007, 199), the quality of democracy (Sedelmeier that they no longer fully qualify as liberal democracies. 2014), human rights (Guzman and Linos 2014), corrup- Because research on Central Europe has used the term tion and state capture (Hanley 2014; Ágh 2015), or for various problems associated with real-life democracy, it violations of fundamental EU norms and laws (Müller is important to be clear about what democratic backsliding 2015; Sitter et al. 2017). is not. First, it is not about low turn-out, weak links Our definition of democratic backsliding rests on four between parties and civic society, declining party mem- key points. First, like Bermeo, we take movement away bership, electoral volatility, fragile government coalitions, from democracy as a starting point. Second, like Waldner or low trust. Such quality-of-democracy problems are and Lust (2018, 95), we limit this to gradual, incremental better captured by Peter Mair and Béla Greskovits’ con- change. Sliding denotes smooth and continuous move- cept hollowing out (Mair 2013, 1; Greskovits 2015,28–29; ment, not rapid democratic breakdown. Third, we regard see Buštíková and Guasti 2017 for an alternative concept). both democratization and democratic backsliding as open- Second, democratic backsliding is not about backlash ended processes that may or may not lead to regime against economic or social liberalism, or the strength of change. Where the process ends—if it ends—is an empir- populism (see e.g., Rupnik 2007,17–18; Krastev 2007, ical question, not a part of the definition. Fourth, pace 56–67; Gati 2007). Populist parties in government may Bermeo, backsliding is elite-driven, and involves successful well be more likely to initiate backsliding, but precisely willful acts by elected power-holders to undermine dem- therefore, populism should not be part of the definition. ocracy. Consequently, backsliding is about what power- Neither should policies on gay marriage, sex education, holders do, not what they would like to do. abortion, or immigration (Dawson and Hanley 2016, Finally, if democratic backsliding involves movement 2019; Hanley and Vachudová 2018; Krastev 2016). As away from democracy, the definition of democracy matters. the Austrian and Italian experience shows, there is a We use a mid-range procedural definition (Merkel 2018, difference between pursuing illiberal policies and breaking 5–6): democratic backsliding means rolling back liberal the rules of the game (see e.g., Rosenberger 2003; Urbinati democracy. Like the simpler electoral democracy, this entails 2011). Only the latter constitutes democratic backsliding. free and fair elections, universal suffrage, and a free press As we define it, democratic backsliding involves both but also rule of law and constraints on executive power. formal and informal erosion of democracy along at least Liberal democracies thus feature (1) political rights: free- one of the three dimensions that are central to liberal dom of expression, association, and assembly; (2) civil democracy: political rights, free elections, and the rule of liberties: protection of life, liberty, and property; (3) checks law. There is no single recipe: democratic backsliding can and balances, separation of powers between the legislature, involve degradation on all three dimensions at the same executive, and judiciary; and (4) accountability of elected time, sequentially, or even in isolation. officials (Merkel 2018,7–11). Since backsliding is a The most obvious form of democratic backsliding is gradual process, it follows that states can be rated in terms restricting classical political rights: freedom of expression of shades of grey. This is indeed the case for Central and assembly. Freedom of expression requires independent Europe (see figures 1 and 2, and Sitter et al. 2016). But media. A government can exercise control of the media— we reserve the term substantial democratic backsliding for print, broadcast, and online—directly through regulation

Figure 1 Freedom in the World. Range 1–7 (inverted scale)

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Slovakia Czech Republic Poland Hungary

3

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

Figure 2 Nations in Transit. Range 1–7 (inverted scale)

7

6

5

4

3

2

1 2002 2005 2010 2011 2013 2017 2001 2003 2004 2006 2007 2008 2009 2012 2014 2015 2016 2018

Czech Republic Slovakia Poland Hungary

and oversight, or more indirectly, e.g., by using state center on member states’ undermining judicial independ- advertising to support government-friendly media. Free- ence. Governments can employ a range of measures to do dom of assembly and association is fundamental for interest this, including unilateral changes in the scope, remit, and aggregation and articulation. A government can under- competence of the constitutional court or lower courts; mine independent civil society organizations, churches, rules and procedures for judicial review; procedures for universities, theatres, etc. through regulations and finan- appointing judges; personnel purges; and even ignoring or cial incentives (e.g., legislation, registration and reporting unconstitutionally overturning court rulings or suspend- requirements, special tax or audit burdens), but also by ing the constitution. informal or illegal practices. Second, free and fair elections are the sine qua non of Assessing Democratic Backsliding in the democracy. As Patrick Dunleavy (1991) pointed out, Visegrád Four, 2010–2019 winners are not simply awarded a prize. They win the There is broad scholarly consensus that substantial demo- power to change the conditions for the next race. Such cratic backsliding has been going on since 2010 in Hun- changes are inevitably controversial; to qualify as backslid- gary and since 2015 in Poland. Both governments ffi ing they must be su ciently one-sided and severe as to increased political control of the media and curtailed the limit free and fair elections. A government can limit freedom of civil society, distorted the electoral process, and fi contestation by excluding speci c parties or lists, through limited the power and independence of the judiciary. unfair campaign rules or media access, by abusing govern- Although acquisition of media by local oligarchs and ment resources for party campaigns, or even vote buying corrupt dealings between politics and business caused (Mares and Young 2019). Moreover, they can redesign the concern also in the other two Visegrád states, develop- electoral system to disadvantage the opposition by chan- ments in the Czech Republic and Slovakia were closer to ging constituencies, electoral thresholds, or formulas Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy than Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. (in PR systems), or even electoral systems, and taking This is reflected in democracy indices, including Polity IV, control of oversight institutions. Freedom House (figure 1), Nations in Transit (figure 2) fl The third dimension of democratic backsliding re ects and Bertelsmann Transformation Index (Merkel 2011, the importance of the rule of law as a fundamental 65–67, 69).5 Their trajectories in the 1990s differed, with component of (liberal) democracy; it requires horizontal the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland as frontrunners separation of powers between the executive, the legislature, and Slovakia as a laggard. Freedom House downgraded ’ and the judiciary. Limiting the legislatures power to Slovakia from Free (as a part of Czechoslovakia) to Partly debate, amend or review laws, and hold the executive to Free in the first year of independence, citing “the govern- — — account, can if taken to extremes limit democracy. ment's mistreatment of ethnic minorities and its crack- “ ” This includes the lock-in of policies through constitu- down on the independence of the media” (Freedom in the tional reform, barring an alternative majority from rever- World 1993–1994, 88).6 Slovakia under Mečiar was sing them in the future. The executive can take control of described as belated transition, or in Soňa Szomolányi’s public administration through personnel purges, nepo- (1999) terms, on a “winding road” to democracy. tism, clientelism, or corruption, and thus blur the bound- In this section, we map democratic degradation since aries of party and state. In the EU, the most serious charges 2010. To flesh out the discussion of what qualifies as

4 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 backsliding and help explain the lack of substantial back- political landscape and caused Freedom House (2019) to sliding in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we also reduce Slovakia’s freedom of expression score. Kuciak had describe an earlier failed attempt to rig the Czech electoral been working on an article on embezzlement of EU funds system and the actions of the third Mečiar government and alleged links between Italian mafia and top Smer (1994–1998). The Hungarian case is outlined first along politicians. This came on top of a generally bad relation- each of the three dimensions. As the most extreme case, it ship between Fico and the media, with the prime minister serves as a benchmark for the other three. calling journalists “filthy anti-Slovak prostitutes.” Fico resigned amid large protests in March 2018. Marián Kočner, a Slovak businessman suspected of links to organ- Backsliding on Political Rights: Free Media and ized crime, was indicted for having ordered the murders in Independent Civil Society 2019 and stood trial as the present article went to press. The new 2010 Fidesz government earned widespread Moving beyond the media, Hungary went far beyond criticism for legislation and government practices that its three neighbors when it came to attacking civil society. curtailed the freedom of the press. Much like Mečiar The most blatant measure, which contributed to Fidesz’s before it, and PiS after it, Fidesz turned state-run media suspension from the EPP, was the so-called “Stop Soros” into a veritable government propaganda machine by law of 2018, which criminalized NGO activities that could populating editorial boards and oversight organs with their be seen as supporting asylum applicants (the European own people (Lebovič 1999, 23; Nations in Transit, Hun- Commission subsequently referred this to the European gary country reports, 2011–2018, and Poland country Court of Justice). This was preceded by a series of meas- reports 2015–2018). However, while private broadcasters ures that limited the independence of universities (2017), in Slovakia tended to support the anti-Mečiar opposition restricted religious organizations (2011), and stigmatized and independent newspapers continued to operate, NGOs that receive foreign funding (2017). The govern- Orbán’s allies took control of most national and regional ment also carried out a series of “information campaigns” newspapers. The leading daily Népszabadság was liquid- against George Soros, the EU, and the UN, where the ated in a hostile takeover in 2016, and the last remaining Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire was portrayed as being opposition daily of any stature, Magyar Nemzet, folded in bent on destroying Hungarian ethnic homogeneity 2018. Although the building of a Fidesz-loyal media (Batory and Svensson 2019; Benková 2019). In 2019 empire through (ab)use of state funds had already started Central European University was expelled from the coun- under the first Orbán government (1998–2002) it was not try, when a law prohibiting the enrolment of new students until the 2010s that Fidesz was in a strong enough position took effect (Corbett and Gordon 2018; Enyedi 2018). to significantly reduce media pluralism (Bátorfy and The Czech Republic and Slovakia saw no comparable Urbán 2020,49ff.). PiS followed Fidesz’s tactic of using measures, but in Poland the turn toward Hungarian-style state advertising money and subsidies to support pro- illiberal democracy hit civil society in 2016 with new laws government media and to punish critical media, but was that that limited access to public funds, established a unable to proceed as far as Fidesz in terms of ownership government-controlled National Institute for Freedom restructuring because a substantial share of Poland’s print (attached to the prime minister’soffice) to distribute media was foreign-owned. funds, and criminalized discussions of Polish individuals’ While state-run media remained quite balanced, acqui- role in the holocaust. These measures were widely seen as sitions of newspapers and media companies by local an effort to limit the independence of PiS-critical civil oligarchs and investment groups caused concerns in the society (Helsinki Foundation 2017). Czech Republic and Slovakia (Lyman 2014). Just as its owner Andrej Babiš entered politics in 2013, the Agrofert group bought MAFRA, one of the biggest Czech publish- Backsliding on Free and Fair Elections: Rules, Finance, ing houses. In Slovakia, the Penta group (linked to high- and Procedures level corruption in the “Gorilla files”) bought a large share Like most liberal democracies, all four Visegrád states have of Petit Press in 2014, but later sold down to a minority amended their electoral laws. As in many other European position. In both cases editors of flagship newspapers cases, controversies arose over party finance. Unlike other resigned in protest. An audio clip posted anonymously EU states, however, the Fidesz and PiS governments took on Twitter in 2017 suggested that there were reasons for control of the electoral process. The Hungarian reform of concern, as Babiš was caught on tape colluding with a 2011 was an extreme case of unilateral, tailor-made, journalist from one of the MAFRA newspapers to smear electoral reform. Before the 2014 election, the government political opponents (Kmenta 2017, 32, 40, 263; Kopeček made substantial changes to the electoral system and 2018, 126–27). Yet Czech media remains pluralist, and campaign financing rules, without consulting the oppos- mainly driven by profit motives (Jirák & Köpplová 2019). ition. While keeping the mixed electoral system, it reduced In Slovakia, Kuciak’s murder sent shock waves through the the number of seats, increased the share contested in single

5

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

member districts, introduced a first-past-the-post system “opposition agreement” with the Social Democrats, in for these constituencies, redrew constituency boundaries, which the two rivals agreed to change the electoral system and changed the appointment rules for the electoral of the lower house from PR to majoritarian. However, commission. The Organization for Security and they failed to use their constitution-altering majority Co-operation in Europe criticized both the 2014 and before the death of a senator deprived them of this power, 2018 elections as free but not fair, giving the governing and their subsequent attempt to circumvent the Consti- party an undue advantage (OSCE 2014, 2018). This was tution by making the PR system less proportional was based on Fidesz’s manipulating the electoral system to struck down by the Constitutional Court on President serve its own interests; blurring the boundaries between Havel’s initiative (Roberts 2003). The ruling sent an state and party; restricting the room for political debate; important signal: to change the electoral system, you first and preventing voters from making informed choices. have to win a constitutional majority in both chambers. In This was as much about political control of the process 2017, Andrej Babiš was therefore well aware that his as the biased electoral law. New campaign finance rules “dream” of a parliament with 101 MPs elected according gave rise to frivolous parties with names suspiciously to the first-past-the-post system was just a dream. He made similar to major opposition parties. The government and clear on election night that it was “not a priority,” and it its allies controlled the media as well as public advertising was not even part of ANO’s program (Babiš 2017; Info.cz space (Nations in Transit 2018). Before the 2018 election, 2017; Kopeček 2018, 132). Fidesz even passed a billboard law against political ads Finally, Czech president Miloš Zeman’s appointing of a outside the official campaign period, while allowing gov- technocratic government in 2013 against the will of the ernment “public interest” ads (in effect, government/party parliamentary majority has been widely interpreted as an propaganda). Fidesz probably would have won under the attempt to turn the country’s parliamentary democracy old system, but secured a supermajority thanks to the into a semi-presidential system (Brunclík and Kubat 2017; new laws. Dawson & Hanley 2016; Hanley and Vachudová 2018). In Poland, the biggest problem in terms of free and fair However, it turned out that the Czech president had no elections was the government’s taking control of the real power to aggrandize, and the attempt was easily oversight of the electoral process, by making sure the contained. This episode is thus not an example of back- National Electoral Office was appointed unilaterally by sliding; it showed that democratic checks and balances PiS in 2018 (Nations in Transit, Poland, 2018, 7). worked. Outgoing Electoral Commission president Wojciech Hermeliński described this as “a return of the electoral commission to the times of the Polish People’s Republic” Backsliding on Rule of Law: Executive and Judiciary (Financial Times 2019b). Previous electoral reforms— Power before almost every election between 1991 and 2005— Attacks on checks and balances, the independence of the had been adopted by majorities that transcended the judiciary, and control of public administration were key government-opposition divide (Benoit and Hayden elements of backsliding in Hungary and Poland. Both 2004). governments used parliamentary procedures to decrease The Czech Republic and Slovakia have had their fair debate and scrutiny of new legislation. Fidesz used its two- share of controversies over electoral reforms (Charvát et al. thirds majority to introduce a new constitution, limited 2015), but no Fidesz-style attempt to take control of the the power of the constitutional court, and populated state entire process. In Slovakia, Mečiar’s Movement for a institutions with its own people, all under the pretext of Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) certainly wished for a (post-communist) reform (Zemandl 2017). The 2011 majoritarian or a mixed system, but the two much smaller constitution (like the earlier mentioned electoral law) junior coalition partners refused. In the end, even the was pushed through as a private member bill, requiring a attempt to skew competition by raising the electoral minimum of debate and scrutiny. The government’s threshold for alliances backfired: the opposition registered subsequent use of constitutional amendments and “Car- their alliances as parties, won the election and reversed the dinal Laws” (which can only be changed by a super- controversial parts of the reform (Lebovič 1999,31–33). majority) drew sharp criticism from the EU Commission Having won the 2012 election, Fico was in the position to president (European Commission 2013). In 2011 the change the electoral system for parliamentary elections Commission censured the government for prematurely unilaterally, but chose not to.7 terminating the term of the president of the Supreme Czech scholars have long advocated a more dispropor- Court and lowering the compulsory retirement age for tional electoral system to make it easier to form stable judges from 70 to 62, thus opening the way for 274 new governments. Petr Fiala (2004), political science professor appointments (Batory 2016a). At the same time, a new and present chairman of the Civic Democrats, is but one. system was put in place for the appointment of judges and In 1998 his party entered into the much criticized allocation of cases, concentrating power in the hands of the

6 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 president of a new National Judicial Office—Tünde there were not controversies. In Prague, Babiš was accused Handó, whose husband was a member of the small Fidesz of putting pressure on police investigating the “Stork’s leadership circle. In 2019 Handó was appointed to the Nest” case, and of replacing the minister of justice to Constitutional Court. ensure that he would not be prosecuted. If that was his Judicial reform is the one area where PiS matched—and intention, it did not work: the chief public prosecutor even surpassed—Fidesz in terms of ambition and speed reopened the case in December 2019 (Politico 2019). (Pech and Scheppele 2017; Pech and Wachowiec 2020). Meanwhile in Slovakia, the parliament failed to nominate Although the Polish government lacked the supermajority any candidates to succeed the nine judges whose term to lock in changes through constitution reform, it made up expired in February 2019. Fico, a lawyer by profession, for this by using its parliamentary majority to pass four had his eyes set on the Constitutional Court presidency. laws on judiciary reform in 2017. It prematurely termin- He did not even get the support of his coalition partners. ated the term of the president of the Supreme Court and This was no government attempt to disable the court; on lowered the compulsory retirement age for judges, result- the contrary, Smer Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini criti- ing in the replacement of 40% of the Supreme Court cized his own party caucus for failing to nominate the judges. Following the example of Fidesz, and before that, necessary number of candidates (TASR 2019). Although Mečiar, PiS used its power to install its own people in appointment of Constitutional Court judges became more important public positions in the civil service, state intel- politicized in both countries, this is a far cry from the kind ligence, the general prosecutor’soffice, state companies, of attack on the judiciary seen in Hungary and Poland. In and bodies involved in state procurement (Galanda, Föl- the Czech Republic, it was the opposition on the center- desová, and Benedik 1999, 85; Nations in Transit, Pol- right (which controlled the Senate) that used the oppor- and, 2016, 2, 2017, 4; Nations in Transit, Hungary 2018, tunity to get back at president Zeman by turning down a 2). The law on the National Council of the Judiciary—the candidate whose professional credentials nobody doubted oversight organ—granted a parliamentary majority the (Januš 2019). right to appoint the members. President Andrzej Duda vetoed the original bills on the Supreme Court and the Explaining Backsliding: Motive, National Council of the Judiciary amid large-scale pro- Opportunity, and Opposition tests; however, the EU and the Venice Commission found This section turns to why Hungary and Poland have been that even the revised laws threatened juridical independ- backsliding since 2010 and 2015; why Smer did not ence, separation of powers, and the rule of law (Nations in initiate backsliding in 2012; and why there was little Transit country reports, Poland, 2018, 2). In November substantial backsliding in the Czech Republic. The core 2019, the European Court of Justice ruled that the argument is that democratic backsliding requires motive, National Council of the Judiciary lacked the independ- opportunity, and the absence of constraints. If backsliding ence to safeguard the independence of the judiciary; in involves deliberate acts by democratically elected govern- 2020 Judge Paweł Juszczyszyn was suspended on reduced ments to undermine the fundamental rules of liberal pay for seeking to implement the ECJ verdict (Pech and democracy, it is a policy choice. And policies need motives. Kelemen 2020). The classical party politics literature focuses on politicians’ Rule of law and separation of powers is perhaps where quest for power in order to implement policies, as well as Mečiar’s Slovakia deviated most from the backsliding power for its own sake or for the sake of enrichment. But in template of the last decade. Although the Constitutional order to achieve their goals, parties must win office. In Court was an important counter-majority force (Kosař, unicameral parliamentary systems, like those of Hungary Baroš, and Dufek 2019, 446), the government did not and Slovakia, this means winning a simple parliamentary seek to control the court by replacing its members. It just majority in a single election. In bi-cameral or (semi-) ignored rulings it did not like. Unlike Fidesz and PiS, presidential systems, it involves the somewhat more diffi- Mečiar did not have a “tame” president. He therefore tried cult task of winning in multiple arenas—as is the case in to curb presidential power in every way possible, including Poland and the Czech Republic. In addition, many con- stripping the president of powers that were not granted by stitutions require super-majorities for constitutional the constitution, slashing his budget and staff, and with change—a two-thirds parliamentary majority in Hungary, the help of the State Intelligence Service, even kidnapping the same plus an absolute majority in the Senate in Poland, his son (Freedom House country report, Slovakia, 1995– a three-fifths majority in Slovakia, and the same in both 1996, 419). houses in the Czech case. Finally, the most important As 2019 came to an end, the independence of the constraints are the opposition parties, which might judiciary and the Constitutional Court in the Czech threaten defeat in the next election; domestic courts, Republic and Slovakia was not under government attack, which might rule new laws unconstitutional; and the and popular trust in the independence of courts was on the EU, which might impose costs on governments that break rise (EU Justice Scoreboard 2019). This is not to say that fundamental EU rules and values.

7

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

Motive: Populism, Policy, and Power down until he could secure full power. ANO thus comes One ideological factor unites Orbán, Kaczyński, Fico, and closer to the West European center-right populism found Babiš—populism. All four lead more or less populist in Italy: in the words of Dalibor Roháč (2017), “by far the parties. In the Hungarian and Polish case, they draw most pressing risk facing the Czech Republic is not heavily on ethnic nationalism, and paint their main authoritarianism, but rather following a path similar to opponents as the heirs of the pre-1989 communists and that of Italy under Silvio Berlusconi’s successive govern- apparatchiks. PiS and Fidesz thus qualify as fully populist ments.” In contrast, when comparing Berlusconi and in the sense of claiming to represent the pure and true Orbán, Körösényi and Patkós (2015)distinguished people against the corrupt elite (Taggart 2000). Both between the former’s liberal populism and the latter’s subscribe to a “winner takes all” approach to democracy illiberal populism. (not unlike that of Mečiar). Whereas mainstream demo- The Babiš-Berlusconi parallel draws attention to the cratic parties see themselves as the temporary custodians of second set of motives for democratic backsliding—to hold limited power, these leaders interpreted their victories as a on to power. Europe is full of career politicians for whom mandate to exercise absolute power. Careful reading of the gaining office is the measure of success. In a few cases, their rhetoric and action of Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kac- motivation is also to protect economic interests or accu- zyński showed this well before their winning power in mulate wealth. Rent-seeking and corruption has been a 2010 and 2015 respectively (Lendvai 2017; Szczerbiak problem in all four Visegrád states: in the 1990s privat- 2016; Financial Times 2016). Only after winning ization and restitution of state property offered ample re-election in 2014, with a new constitution and tailor- opportunities for corruption, and after EU accession made electoral system, did the Hungarian prime minister Structural Funds played similar role (Gassebner, Lamla, set out what he labelled an “illiberal” ideology as an and Vreeland 2012; Sitter and Bakke 2019; Guasti and alternative to liberal democracy (Orbán 2014). In Poland, Mansfeldová 2018; see also Dvořáková 2012). Hungary Kaczyński played up his ideological kinship with Orbán provides the clearest example of what Bálint Magyar after the election victory, no doubt partly to ensure that (2016) labelled the “post-communist mafia state”: distrib- the two would protect each other against any action from uting EU funds to supporters in more or less corrupt the EU (which requires a unanimous vote among the other schemes was the central element in Fidesz’seffort to build member states to suspend aspects of a country’s member- a supportive oligarchy and a “new national middle class.” ship). In terms of policy, Fidesz and PiS followed the Critics described the relationship between the ruling elite classic populist recipe, rapidly introducing policies that and its oligarchs as reverse state capture, where Fidesz set were widely described as Christian national, populist, or up corruption networks and secured political control of socially conservative, and economically protectionist, with the prosecutor’soffice to ensure that it went unpunished the added proviso that those advocating alternatives to (Nations in Transit, Hungary country report 2018, 12). In these policies would be against the true will of the nation. 2018, Forbes rated Orbán’s childhood friend, the gas fitter Populist ideology and policy could therefore be assigned a Lőrinc Mészáros, as the richest individual in Hungary large role in motivation for backsliding. (Index 2019). This gave rise to an extreme version of the Smer and ANO represent a different kind of populism— office-seeking party: the far right Jobbik party built its one that is more centrist and technocratic (Učeň 2007; electoral campaign in 2018 around the promise that if Buštíková and Guasti 2018), even if lack of tolerance and Fidesz lost the election, its leaders and oligarchs would be restraint is striking in these cases too. To be sure, Fico did prosecuted. not shy away from nationalist rhetoric. Yet his attempt to In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, practically all use the migration crisis in the 2016 electoral campaign government parties have been involved in corruption backfired, partly because of competition from the extreme scandals. In Slovakia, some of the HZDS oligarchs that right Kotleba party.8 While Babiš qualifies as a populist in had benefited from government control of the National terms of his rhetoric directed against corrupt and incom- Property Fund allegedly transferred their allegiance to petent traditional party elites (Hanley and Vachudova Robert Fico’s Smer when they realized that HZDS was a 2018), he had an even weaker ideological agenda than spent force (Vagovič 2016, 7). Corruption associated with Fico, and is manifestly not a Czech nationalist (Kopeček public procurement has been rampant. As in the other 2018, 97, 129–132). Although he is on record as admiring three states, abuse of EU agricultural funding was an Orbán’s “untrammelled authority” (Hanley and Vachudová endemic problem (New York Times 2019); the murder 2018, 282), neither Babiš nor Fico reject liberal democ- of Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak in 2018 was linked to his racy. In 2013, Babiš outsourced the compiling of a investigation of organized crime and corruption associated program to a public relations company (Bakke 2017). with such funds. In the Czech Republic, a party finance If he aspired to weaken democratic checks and balances, scandal brought down the second Václav Klaus govern- he also followed his Hungarian role model in playing this ment, and oligarch links with the Civic Democrats and the

8 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Social Democrats are well documented (Klíma 2015). In Szydło fronted the party during the campaign, while the Italy, Berlusconi famously used political power to protect controversial party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński assumed and enhance his media and financial empire (Ginsborg a backstage role (Szczerbiak 2016; Markowski 2018). Like 2004); according to Kopeček (2018, 95) one of Babiš’ Fidesz, PiS benefitted from a fragmented set of rivals and motives for entering politics was precisely to protect his an unpopular incumbent government. The functional economic interests. Accusations of embezzlement of EU equivalent of Gyurcsány’s “we lied” speech was the “Wait- subsidies marred his premiership. When the European ergate” scandal, which involved indiscretions of top gov- Commission in 2019 found him in breach of EU conflict ernment politicians caught on tape in fancy Warsaw of interest rules and threatened to suspend EU funding, restaurants. The key factor that turned a 38% plurality this prompted the “Million Moments for Democracy” into a majority in 2015 was the failure of the divided left civic group to organize demonstrations attended by and the extreme right to win any seats. In 2019, facing a some 250,000 people. The crowds demanded Babiš’ better organized opposition, PiS won the lower house, but resignation and that Agrofert be cut off from EU funds lost control of the senate. (Reuters 2019). The surprise in the Hungarian 2010 election was not The Polish case is less clear cut, because most of the the Fidesz victory, but that 53% of the vote gave the party high-profile corruption cases are linked to party finance a two-thirds majority in parliament. In 1990, with an rather than personal enrichment. Poland’s dollar- emergent six-party system, the combination of a mixed billionaires do not have the close links to the party elite electoral system and the two-thirds threshold for consti- that Mészáros has to Fidesz. The country ranks third, after tutional change looked like a reasonable safeguard. By the Romania and Hungary, on OLAF’s 2017 list of investi- end of 2006, Fidesz had absorbed large parts of the other gations of misuse of EU funds (European Anti-Fraud three “bourgeois” parties and was left almost alone in Office 2018), but still had the best score on Transparency opposition to the re-elected MSzP-SzDSz coalition. Win- International’s Corruption Perception Index of the Vise- ning executive office is a necessary condition for demo- grád four in 2018. Whereas the quest for wealth and power cratic backsliding; a parliamentary majority makes it carries more explanatory weight in the Czech and Slovak easier; but control of a super-majority in 2010 rendered cases, and Fidesz’s motivation draws on both, in the Polish Fidesz unstoppable. When the government secured case the motivation for backsliding thus appeared to be re-election in 2014 and 2018, its illiberal program was linked more strongly to ideology and policy. much clearer. But by then the party had taken control of state (and much private) media and made the electoral system more disproportional (Batory 2016b). Without the Opportunity: Elections, Majorities, and ability to adopt a new constitution and amend it as it saw Super-Majorities fit, reform the judiciary, change the electoral law, and lock If backsliding involves deliberate acts by democratically in future changes through Cardinal Laws, Fidesz’s back- elected governments to undermine the fundamental sliding project would have been much more difficult to rules of liberal democracy, its starting point is an elect- sustain. Although many of the laws that centralized gov- oral victory. The biggest obstacle to democratic back- ernment power over the media and civil society were sliding is that political parties with this kind of political adopted as ordinary laws, Fidesz’s super-majority meant agenda rarely win power in free elections in liberal that the chances of the president or the Constitutional democracies. Indeed, neither Fidesz in 2010 nor PiS Court reversing laws that involved democratic backsliding in 2015 ran on platforms that even hinted at the radical were slim. de-democratization they would pursue. Both Orbán Smer, PiS, and ANO never had Fidesz’s exceptional (1998–2002) and Kaczyński (2006–2007) had previously opportunity. Smer’s landslide victory in 2012 raised fears served as prime ministers in coalition governments. that Fico might follow in Orbán’s footsteps (Spiegel 2012). Fidesz’s 2006 and 2010 election campaigns centered on Like Fidesz, it won the election on a campaign that focused economic issues such as unemployment, wages and pen- on socio-economic issues and presented Smer as the sions, and the need for a change of government. In 2010, guarantor of stability, helped by a corruption and surveil- Fidesz’s victory came on the back of economic crisis, lance scandal (the “Gorilla files,” which involved the corruption scandals, and dissatisfaction with the economic 2002–2006 center-right coalition, and, as it later turned transition. The MSzP also suffered government fatigue out, Fico as well). But Fico took another course and after two terms in power, particularly after a leaked speech invited all the other parties to coalition talks. They in which Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány admitted lying declined. Although Smer did not have the two-thirds about the economy in the 2006 campaign (Sitter 2011). super-majority needed to change the Constitution unilat- Likewise, PiS won the 2015 elections on populist socio- erally, it had the power to change the electoral system. Yet economic issues, in this case increased child benefits and Fico declared that there would be no major changes in the lower retirement age. Moderate PiS politicians like Beata electoral system without opposition agreement (Spáč

9

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

2014). One interpretation is that Fico did not aim to constitutional change requires three-fifths majorities in backslide. Another is that he had intended to concentrate both houses, even a landslide election is very unlikely to power (Mesežnikov 2015), but backed down after losing give any party constitution-altering power. Moreover, the the presidential election to Andrej Kiska in 2014. What- senate’s two-round run-off system favors centrist candi- ever his motivation, electoral reform was risky. Given high dates. In addition, because PR elections to the lower house electoral volatility, no party could be certain of its future are written into the Constitution, electoral system change support. Even if Fico followed Orbán’s example and is difficult, as the failed attempt in the 1998–2002 period introduced a majoritarian electoral system, it might back- to introduce a majoritarian system showed. Whether Babiš fire. This became abundantly clear in 2017, when regional is a Berlusconi or an Orbán was a moot point as long as he governors were elected with a first-past-the-post system: lacked the power to emulate Fidesz. Smer lost every single contest. Indeed, the victory of the rainbow coalition against HZDS in 1998 had shown what a united opposition could achieve. Slovakia’s experience Opposition: Will, Power, and Strategy with backsliding under Mečiar seems to have put Slovak Our analysis of motive and opportunity suggests that society into a perpetual state of alarm, where any sign of democratic backsliding can be a vicious cycle. For a power concentration triggers a counter-reaction. This was strongly motivated party, a single opportunity to alter the case when the liberal Zuzana Čaputová beat Smer- the constitution and change the rules of the game can supported MarošŠefčovič in the March 2019 presidential yield new opportunities for further backsliding. Fidesz’s election. democratic backsliding during the 2010–2014 parliament The Polish and Czech cases direct attention to the role gave it the control of the electoral process and the media of the second chamber. After its 2015 victory, PiS lost no dominance it needed to secure further super-majorities time in emulating Fidesz. However, its backsliding came with lower shares of the vote in 2014 and 2018 (figure 3). off to a much more difficult start because it did not win It was no accident that the first steps taken by Fidesz and constitution-altering powers. This left the Constitutional PiS involved efforts to limit the powers of the judiciary. Court in a stronger position to fight back, and the EU in a The contrast between Fidesz’s successful takeover of the better position to defend the Polish judiciary. In the judiciary and the struggle between the PiS government meantime, the European Commission had also learned and the Polish constitutional court during the 2015–2019 some lessons about the limited effect of cautious handling parliament illustrated the role of one of the three actors of backsliding, and equipped itself with the new Rule of best placed to oppose or constrain democratic backsliding. Law Framework (Sitter and Bakke 2019). PiS’ loss of the To the extent that democratic backsliding involves break- senate in 2019 made it more difficult even to pass ordinary ing the national constitution, the most direct constraints legislation. The Czech case is simpler, because there was no on backsliding rest in the hands of the national constitu- majority power for ANO to abuse. In 2017 the party won tional court (Kosař, Baroš, and Dufek 2019). Two other seventy-eight of two hundred seats in the lower house, and constraints—the opposition and the European Union— as per 2020 it controlled only seven of eighty-one senators. operate more indirectly. This was not merely a result of the vote distribution in a If democratic backsliding is ultimately about the offend- given year, but a systemic feature of the Czech system. ing party retaining power, the “democratic opposition” can Because elections to the Senate are held over a staggered be a constraint on backsliding. In contrast to actual authori- period, with one-third elected every other year, and tarian regimes, or even “competitive authoritarianism”

Figure 3 Shares of votes compared to shares of seats, V4 elections 2010–2019

80 70 60 50 40 30 53 49 20 44 39 44 45 30 35 38 10 22 21 28 0 ČSSD ČSSD ANO Smer Smer Smer PO PiS Pis Fidesz Fidesz Fidesz 2010 2013 2017 2010 2012 2016 2011 2015 2019 2010 2014 2018 Votes Seats above vote proporƟon

10 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 (Levitsky and Way 2002,Kelemen2017), democratic the dismissed judges rather than reinstate them (Batory backsliding involves a risk that the backsliding government 2016a). Even after the Commission adopted the Rule of loses an election. In the end, Mečiar’s backsliding project Law Framework in 2014, Polish prime minister Beata failed primarily because the other parties united against Szydło simply dismissed the Commission’s Rule of Law him, although EU pressure helped (Vachudova 2005). In Recommendations (European Commission 2017). How- 2010 and 2015 Orbán and Kaczyński benefitted from a ever, in 2018 and 2019 the European Court of Justice fragmented opposition to an extent that Babiš and Fico found the dismissal of Polish constitutional and ordinary never did. But majoritarian systems—even gerrymandered judges by way of early retirement in breach of EU law, this ones—are vulnerable to changes in opposition strategy. In time also citing the negative effect on the independence of 2006, Berlusconi lost the election with a tailor-made the judiciary. As in the case of the fragmented opposition, electoral law (which the constitutional court eventually the very cautious approach the EU took to dealing with declared unconstitutional in 2013). On October democratic backsliding in the decade following Fidesz’s 13, 2019, PiS met a milder version of Berlusconi and 2010 victory removed an important potential constraint Mečiar’sfatewhenKaczyński’s party lost control of the on backsliding in this crucial period. However, after a senate. The very same day, Fidesz lost the Budapest mayoral decade’s experience, the Commission began to explore race to a united opposition. In the 2014 and 2018 elections new ways of constraining backsliding, including linking opposition disunity played directly into Orbán’s hands, EU funding to compliance with the rule of law (Scheppele, making the limits to free and fair elections less relevant. Pech, and Keleman 2018; Sitter and Bakke 2019). Although Orbán could easily dismiss the policy importance of Gergely Karácsony’s Budapest victory, his mayoral elec- Conclusion: Containing the EU’s Enfants tion drove home a more important political message: short Terribles of a fully blown “competitive authoritarian” model, demo- Democratic backsliding is a serious problem both for the cratic backsliding is an open-ended and potentially revers- states where it occurs and for the EU. But the situation is ible process. Until the end of 2019, backsliding in Hungary not as desperate as some commentators would have it. As and Poland had been possible partly because the weakness of 2020, Hungary had clearly crossed the line and left and disunity of the opposition removed a significant con- liberal democracy behind. The PiS government in Poland straint on Orbán and Kaczyński—the threat of electoral had gone far down a similar track, but the EU had woken defeat. up to the danger. The Commission began to explore new Finally, for EU member states, the EU itself represents a policy tools for dealing with rule-of-law violations, such as potential constraint on backsliding. As of 2020, however, withholding EU funding. On the other hand, although the EU had failed to live up to expectations that it might the Czech Republic and Slovakia had serious problems limit or reverse democratic backsliding (Sedelmeier 2017, with corruption and media freedom, they remained a long Sitter and Bakke 2019). Part of the problem lay in the way away from the serious and substantial democratic EU’s limited policy tools. But, as Daniel Kelemen (2017) backsliding seen in Poland and Hungary. In terms of argues, the main problem was one of political will— freedom of association, free and fair elections, centraliza- among governments that were sympathetic to Fidesz and tion of executive power, and independence of the judi- PiS, among MEPs from the European People’s Party, ciary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia remained more or and among EPP-appointed Commissioners. The EU’s less ordinary liberal democracies—albeit featuring some of ultimate sanction—suspension of important aspects of the problems that made Italy a “difficult democracy.” EU membership under the procedure laid out in Article Babiš and Zeman might have dreamt about, and even 7 of the Treaty on European Union—requires unanimity attempted, abusing power, but the same charge was among the remaining member states. This was not merely levelled against Boris Johnson. As in the British case, they a matter of Poland and Hungary protecting each other. ran up against institutional constraints. As Timothy Gar- When EU ambassadors voted informally on whether to ton Ash (2019) soberly put it in October 2019: consider an Article 7 move against Poland in 2017, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Croatia voted Only in Hungary, however, has the erosion of democracy gone so far that it is difficult to envisage even the best-organized opposition against, while Austria, Romania, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, party winning a national election anytime soon. Everywhere else in Estonia, Slovenia, the UK, and Bulgaria abstained. Like- the region there are still regular, free, and relatively fair elections. As wise, ordinary mechanisms for dealing with states that in America, as in Britain, as in every other imperfect democracy— break EU laws proved inadequate because the Commis- and which is not imperfect?—the challenge throughout Central fi sion opted for a two-track strategy of admonishing Fidesz Europe is to nd the party, the program, and the leaders to win that next election. They have our problems now. but choosing infringement procedures that allowed the government to make minor amends. The dismissal of If the Hungarian and Polish cases show the seriousness judges was dealt with as a matter of age discrimination, of backsliding, the Czech and Slovak cases demonstrate which allowed the Hungarian government to compensate that the situation is far from desperate. The Hungarian

11

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

case was exceptional. Fidesz’s ability to change the regime the seriousness of backsliding in Poland and Hungary. was contingent on a “perfect storm” that combined a From a liberal democratic point of view, both cases are of parliamentary super-majority with a weak constitution, a course very problematic. Neither is this to trivialize the supportive president, a fragmented opposition, an over- problems of corporate interests, corruption, and inequality cautious European Commission, and a protective in any of the four states. Nevertheless, democratic back- EU-level political party. Fidesz’s two-thirds majority sliding poses a serious policy dilemma for the EU: con- allowed it to circumvent all constitutional safeguards, fronting Poland and Hungary might push one or both out while parts of the opposition and many actors at the of the EU; but accommodating backsliding undermines EU-level failed to appreciate the real danger of democratic the credibility of EU’s commitments to its own constitu- backsliding. By 2020, the situation in Poland was serious, tional values, and might encourage others to follow the but somewhat more precarious. PiS not only lacked “illiberal” path. Yet taken together, the Visegrád Four extraordinary constitution-altering powers, but had lost suggest that it might not be easy for other EU member control of the senate. It faced a more assertive European states to follow Hungary’s path. As Poland ran up against Commission. Whereas Fidesz enjoyed a considerable the EU’s limits, it saw the specter of a future choice degree of protection due to its status as a member of the between a return to liberal democracy or acceptance of European People’s Party, PiS had no political shield. The relegation to a second-tier status in the EU, or even adage than once (Mečiar) is an accident, twice (Orbán) is a expulsion. Even more significantly, the Czech and Slovak coincidence, and three times (Kaczyński) suggests a pat- cases show that it can be difficult for politicians that are tern does not quite hold in this case. Although the PiS even suspected of harboring “illiberal” plans to win elec- government pushed through measures that amounted tions. Even when they do, they face strong institutional to serious democratic backsliding, the conditions for constraints. Babiš and Fico are no Orbáns or Kaczyńskis, further backsliding were much less favorable there than but even if they were, the illiberal path is strewn with more in Hungary, independent media and civil society were obstacles than was the case for Orbán in 2010. Orbán stronger, and its opponents were better organized might have inspired imitators, but the defenders of liberal (Vachudova 2019). democracy have also learned their lessons. The Czech and Slovak cases, moreover, show the limits to backsliding that lack of opportunity and strong oppos- Notes ition might provide. Whatever their motives, Babiš and ’ Fico (after 2016) did not have the parliamentary majority 1 European People s Party president Joseph Daul on “ ’ to embark on serious backsliding, let alone the power to Viktor Orbán, cited in the Financial Times, Germany s ’ change the constitution. There is nothing to suggest that Weber Set to Lead Europe s Centre-Right into 2019 ” they will win such a majority in the near future. Oppos- Vote, November 7, 2018. – ition parties mobilized against efforts to centralize power, 2 The fourth coalition party, the center right Network ť and people took to the streets in huge numbers. Coalition (#Sie ), disintegrated. By 2020, all MPs had left the – partners refused to go along with initiatives that could have party, but because some of them joined Most Híd, the led to backsliding. If anything, Slovak politics seems to government retained its parliamentary majority. have been “inoculated” by the Mečiar experience: parties 3 In 2019, Slovakia scored 88/100 on the Freedom and voters respond quickly to punish potential backsliders. House index, on par with Italy (89) and only marginally Although the two governments showed sympathy and behind the Czech Republic and Lithuania (both at 91) support for their backsliding neighbors (notably when and Slovenia and Estonia (both 94), but above Latvia they joined with Italy to block Frans Timmermans’ (87) and well ahead of Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and appointment as Commission President in July 2019), Romania. careful analysis of domestic politics and political institu- 4 Fidesz technically won in coalition with the Christian ’ tions should allay any fears that these two countries might Democratic People s Party (KDNP). KDNP is formally be pushed down the illiberal path if the EU acts too a separate party but in practice operates as a faction strongly against Poland and Hungary. Consequently, the within Fidesz since 2006. risk that the “hollowing out” of democracy that these two 5 We do not report V-Dem scores because of an obvious ’ states had experienced by early 2020 might develop into error in Slovakia s Clean Elections Index for 1993 (set serious democratic backsliding hinges both on domestic to 0 on a scale from 0 to 1 although Slovakia had no institutions, political parties’ strategies, the voters’ reac- election this year). Since this is used to calculate the tions, and on the EU’s will and capacity to address the Electoral Democracy Index, it drives the Electoral backsliding problem in Poland and Hungary. Democracy score as well as the Liberal Democracy score The overall conclusion from comparing the four cases is (0.32 in 1993). Moreover, the Liberal Democracy score that democratic backsliding is more precarious than much for 1994 is only marginally higher (0.35), although the fi of the recent literature suggests. This is not to play down Clean Elections Index is 0.92, which seems a little shy.

12 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 6 Based on the evidence, Freedom House’s assessment of Bermeo, Nancy. 2016. “On Democratic Backsliding.”. the quality of Slovakia’s democracy as worse in 1993 Journal of Democracy 27(1): 5–19. than in 1996–1997 does not seem very plausible. It is Brunclík, Miloš, and Michal Kubát. 2017. Kdo vládne nevertheless clear that Slovakia lagged behind the other Česku? Poloprezidenský režim, přímá volba a pravidla hry. three Visegrád countries in democratic development in Brno: Barrister & Principal. the early 1990s. Bugarič, Bojan, and Tom Ginsburg. 2016. “The Assault 7 In 2015 Smer did adopt a controversial ban on pub- on Postcommunist Courts.” Journal of Democracy 27 lishing opinion poll results for two weeks before the (3): 69–82. election; in October 2019 the government parties, Buštíková, Lenka, and Petra Guasti. 2017. “The Illiberal including Smer, voted to extend the moratorium to five Turn or Swerve in Central Europe?” Politics and weeks. President Čaputová vetoed it and subsequently Governance 5(4): 166–76. filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court, which Buštíková, Lenka, and Petra Guasti. 2018. “The State as a suspended the law. However, this moratorium hardly Firm. Understanding the Autocratic Roots of hurt the opposition more than the government. The Technocratic Populism.” East European Politics and same goes for the 3.5 million euro cap on private Societies and Cultures 33(2): 302–30. contributions to parties, adopted in June 2019. Carothers, Thomas. 2007. “A Quarter Century of 8 Smer gained temporarily and polled on average around Promoting Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 18(4): 40% in the last three months of 2015, but won only 113–23. 28% of the votes in the March 2016 election. Charvát, Jakub, a kol. 2015. Pokušení vládnoucích. Politika volebních reforem ve střední Evropě. Praha: References MUP Press. All webpages were accessed on March 31, 2020. Cianetti, Licia, James Dawson, and Seán Hanley. 2018. Ágh, Attila. 2015. “De-Europeanization and “Rethinking ‘Democratic Backsliding’ in Central and De-Democratization Trends in ECE: From the Eastern Europe—Looking beyond Hungary and Potemkin Democracy to the Elected Autocracy in Poland.” East European Politics 34(3): 243–56. Hungary.” Journal of Comparative Politics 8(2): 4–26. Corbett, Anne, and Claire Gordon. 2018. “Academic Ash, Timothy Garton. 2019. “Time for a New Liberation?” Freedom in Europe: The Central European University New York Review of Books, October 24. Affair and the Wider Lessons.” History of Education Babiš, Andrej. 2017. What I Dream of When I Happen to Quarterly 58(3): 467–47. Sleep. Prague: Czech Printer Center. Daly, Tom G. 2019. “Democratic Decay: Bakke, Elisabeth. 2017. “Tsjekkia: Business as Usual?” In Conceptualising an Emerging Research Field.” Hague Velkommen til statsvitenskap, ed. Raino Malnes. Oslo: Journal on the Rule of Law 1(2): 9–36. Gyldendal Akademisk. Dawson, James, and Seán Hanley. 2016. “East Central Balík, Stanislav, ed. 2016. Kvalita demokracie v České Europe: The Fading Mirage of the ‘Liberal Republice. Brno: Muni Press. Consensus.’” Journal of Democracy 27(1): 20–34. Bátorfy, Attila, and Ágnes Urbán. 2020. “State Dawson, James, and Seán Hanley. 2019. “Foreground Advertising as an Instrument of Transformation of the Liberalism, Background Nationalism: A Discursive Media Market in Hungary.” East European Politics 36 Institutionalist Account of EU Leverage and (1): 44–65. ‘Democratic Backsliding’ in East Central Europe” Batory, Agnes. 2016a. “Defying the Commission. Journal of Common Market Studies 57(4): 710–28. Creative Compliance and Respect for the Rule of Law Diamond, Larry. 1996. “Is the Third Wave Over?” Journal in the EU.” Public Administration 94(3): 685–699. of Democracy 7(3): 20–34. Batory, Agnes. 2016b. “Populists in Government? Dunleavy, Patrick. 1991. Democracy, Bureaucracy and Hungary's ‘System of National Cooperation.’” Public Choice. Economic Explanations in Political Democratization 23(2): 283–303. Science. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Batory, Agnes, and Sara Svensson. 2019. “The Use and Dvořáková, Vladimíra. 2012. Rozkládání státu. Prague: Abuse of Participatory Governance by Populist Universum. Governments.” Policy & Politics 47(2): 227–44. Enyedi, Zsolt. 2018. “Democratic Backsliding and Benková, Lívia. 2019. “Hungary-Orbán’s Project towards Academic Freedom in Hungary.” Perspectives on Politics ‘Illiberal Democracy.’” Fokus 2:1–4. Austria: Institut 16(4): 1067–74. für Europa- und Sicherheitspolitik. European Anti-Fraud Office. 2018. The OLAF Report Benoit, Kenneth and Jaqueline Hayden. 2004. 2017. Luxembourg: Publications of the European “Institutional Change and Persistence: The Evolution Union. of Poland's Electoral System, 1989–2001.” Journal of European Commission. 2013. The European Commission Politics 66(2): 396–427. reiterates its serious concerns over the Fourth Amendment

13

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

to the Constitution of Hungary. Press Release IP-13-327, Guasti, Petra, and Zdenka Mansfeldová. 2018. Brussels, April 12. “Democracy in Crisis? The Czech Republic in Post- European Commission. 2017. Rule of Law: Commission Accession and Economic Turmoil.” In Democracy Issues Recommendation to Poland. Press Release Under Stress. Changing Perspectives on Democracy, IP-16-2643, Brussels, July 27. Governance and Their Measurement, ed. Petra Guasti EU Justice Scoreboard. 2019. European Commission. and Zdenka Mansfeldová. Prague: Institute of (https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and- Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. fundamental-rights/upholding-rule-law/eu-justice- Guzman, Andrew T., and Katerina Linos. 2014. “Human scoreboard_en). Rights Backsliding.” California Law Review 102: Fiala, Petr. 2004. “Kritická interpretace zákonů o vlivu 603–54. volebních systémů na stranické systémy.” In Volební a Hanley, Seán. 2014. “Two Cheers for Czech Democracy.” stranické systémy ČR v mezinárodním srovnání, Czech Journal of Political Science (3): 161–76. ed. Miroslav Novák and Tomáš Lebeda. Pelhřimov: Hanley, Seán, and Milada Anna Vachudova. 2018. AlešČeněk. “Understanding the Illiberal Turn: Democratic Financial Times. 2016. “Jaroslaw Kaczynski: Poland’s Backsliding in the Czech Republic.” East European Kingmaker.” February 26. Politics 34(3): 276–96. Financial Times 2019a. “Poland’s Electoral Reforms Helsinki Foundation. 2017. “The Situation of Civil Criticised as Return to Communist Times.” March 25. Society Organizations in Poland.” (http://www.hfhr.pl/ Financial Times. 2019b. “Slovakia Offers a Ray of Hope in wp-content/uploads/2017/09/HFHR_situation_ Central Europe.” April 1. ngos_in_Poland_brief.pdf). Foa, Roberto Stefan, and Yascha Mounk. 2017. “The Signs Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. The Third Wave. of Deconsolidation.” Journal of Democracy 28(1): 5–15. Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Freedom in the World. (Various). Country Reports. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Washington, DC: Freedom House. Index. 2019. “Forbes: Mészáros Lőrinc bekerült a világ Foa, Roberto Stefan, and Yascha Mounk. 2019. leggazdagabb emberei közé.” March 5. “Democracy in Retreat.” Washington, DC: Freedom Info.cz. 2017. Hnutí ANO je vítězem. Tisková konference House. Andreje Babiše. October 21. (https://www.info.cz/ Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. “The End of History?” volby/volby-2017/zive-hnuti-ano-je-vitezem-tiskova- National Interest 16:3–18. konference-andreje-babise-17932.html). Galanda, Milan, Andrea Földesová, and Marek Benedik. Januš, Jan. 2019. “Gerloch ústavním soudcem nebude. 1999. “Rule of Law, Legislation and Constitutionality.” Podpořilo ho jen 19 senátorů.” Info.cz, March 20. In Slovakia 1998–1999. A Global Report on the State of (https://www.info.cz/pravo/gerloch-ustavnim- Society. Bratislava: IVO. soudcem-nebude-podporilo-ho-jen-19- Gassebner, Martin, Michael J. Lamla, and James senatoru-40946.html). Razmond Vreeland. 2012. “Extreme Bounds of Jee, Haemin, Hans Lueders, and Rachel Myrick. 2019. Democracy.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 57(2): Towards a Unified Concept of Democratic Backsliding. 171–97. April 18. SSRN. (http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ Gati, Charles. 2007. “Backsliding in Central and Eastern ssrn.3374080). Europe!” Quarterly Journal 6(3): 107–20. Jirák, Jan, and Barbara Köpplová. 2019. “Přednosti a Giebler, Heiko, Saskia P. Ruth, and Dag Tanneberg. problémy liberálně demokratického mediálního 2018. “Why Choice Matters: Revisiting and modelu.” In Politický systém Česka, ed. Astrid Lorenz Comparing Measures of Democracy.” Politics and and Hana Formánková. Brno: CDK. Governance 6(1): 1–10. Kelemen, Daniel R. 2017. “Europe’s Other Democratic Ginsborg, Paul. 2004. Silvio Berluscioni: Television, Power Deficit: National Authoritarianism in Europe’s and Partimony. London: Verso. Democratic Union.” Journal of European Public Policy Greskovits, Béla. 2015. “The Hollowing and Backsliding 24(3): 337–51. of Democracy in East Central Europe.” Global Policy 6 Klíma, Michal. 2015. Od totality k defektní demokracii. (1): 28–37. Praha: SLON. Grzebalska, Weronika, and Andrea Pető. 2018. “The Kmenta, Jaroslav. 2017. Boss Babiš. Nymburk: JKM. Gendered Modus Operandi of the Illiberal Kopeček, Lubomír. 2018. “ANO: Vytvoření Transformation in Hungary and Poland.” Women's efektivního a loajálního politického stroje.” In Já Studies International Forum 68:164–72. platím, já rozhoduji Političtí podnikatelé a jejich strany, Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2019. “How Populists Rule: The ed. Lubomír Kopeček, Vít Hloušek, Roman Consequences for Democratic Governance.” Polity 51 Chytilek, and Petra Svačinová. Brno: B & P (4): 707–17. Publishing.

14 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Körösényi, András, and Veronika Patkós. 2015. “Liberális Democracy, Governance and Their Measurement, és illiberális populizmus: Berlusconi és Orbán politikai ed. Petra Guasti and Zdenka Mansfeldová. Prague: vezetése.” Politikatudományi Szemle 24(2): 29–54. Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Kosař, David, Jiří Baroš, and Pavel Dufek. 2019. “The Sciences. Twin Challenges to Separation of Powers in Central McFaul, Michael. 2002. “The Fourth Wave of Europe: Technocratic Governance and Populism." Democracy and Dictatorship.” World Politics 54(2): European Constitutional Law Review 15:427–61. 212–44. Kovács, Kriszta, and Kim Lane Scheppele. 2018. “The Mechkova, Valeriya, Anna Lührmann, and Staffan I. Fragility of an Independent Judiciary: Lessons from Lindberg. 2017. “How Much Democratic Backsliding?” Hungary and Poland—and the European Union.” Journal of Democracy 28(4): 162–69. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 51(3): Merkel, Wolfgang. 2010. “Are Dictatorships Returning? 189–200. Revisiting the ‘Democratic Rollback’ Hypothesis.” Krastev, Ivan. 2007. “The Strange Death of the Liberal Contemporary Politics 16(1): 17–31. Consensus.” Journal of Democracy 18(4): 55–63. Merkel, Wolfgang. 2011. “Plausible Theory, Krastev, Ivan. 2016. “Liberalism’s Failure to Deliver.” Unexpected Result: The Rapid Democratic Journal of Democracy 27(1): 35–38. Consolidation of Central and Eastern Europe.” In Krizsan, Andrea, and Conny Roggeband. 2018. “Towards 20YearssincetheFalloftheBerlinWall, ed. Elisabeth a Conceptual Framework for Struggles over Democracy Bakke and Ingo Peters. Berlin: Berliner in Backsliding States: Gender Equality Policy in Central Wissenschafts-Verlag. Eastern Europe.” Politics and Governance 6(3): 90–100. Merkel, Wolfgang. 2018. “Challenge or Crisis of Lebovič, Peter. 1999. “Zápas o udržanie demokracie: Democracy.” In Democracy and Crisis: Challenges in politické súvislosti novelizácie volebného zákona.” In Turbulent Times, ed. Wolfgang Merkel and Sascha Kto? Prečo? Ako? Slovenské voľby ’98, ed. Martin Bútora, Kneip. Basel: Springer International Publishing. Grigorij Mesežnikov, and Zora Bútorová. Bratislava: Mesežnikov, Grigorij. 2015. “Mesežnikov: 2015 Will Be a IVO. Pre-Election Year.” Slovak Spectator, January 12. Lendvai, Paul. 2017. Orbán: Europe's New Strongman. Mesežnikov, Grigorij, and Ol'ga Gyárfášová. 2018. London: Hurst & Co. “Slovakia’s Conflicting Camps.” Journal of Democracy Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2002. “The Rise of 29(3): 78–90. Competitive Authoritarianism”. Journal of Democracy Müller, Jan-Werner. 2015. “Should the EU Protect 13(2): 51-66. Democracy and the Rule of Law in Member States?” Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2015. “The Myth of European Law Journal 21(2): 141–60. Democratic Recession”. Journal of Democracy 26(1): Nations in Transit. (Various). “Country Reports.” 45–58. Washington, DC: Freedom House. Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How New York Times. 2019. “The Money Farmers: How Democracies Die. New York: Crown. Oligarchs and Populists Milk the E.U. for Millions.” Lührmann, Anna, and Staffan Lindberg. 2019. “A Third November 3. Wave of Autocratization Is Here: What Is New about Orbán, Viktor. 2014. “Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s It?” Democratization 26(7): 1095–13. Speech at the 25th Bálványos Summer Free University Lyman, Rick. 2014. “Oligarchs of Eastern Europe Scoop and Student Camp.” Prime Minister’sOffice Up Stakes in Media Companies.” New York Times, [Hungary], July 26. November 26. (https:// Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/world/oligarchs-of- (OSCE). (Various). “Election Observation Reports.” eastern-europe-scoop-up-stakes-in-media- Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR. companies.html). Pech, Laurent, and R. Daniel Kelemen. 2020. “If You Magyar, Bálint. 2016. Post-Communist Mafia State: The Think the U.S. Is Having a Constitutional Crisis, You Case of Hungary. Budapest: Central European Should See What Is Happening in Poland.” Washington University Press. Post, January 25. Mair, Peter. 2013. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Pech, Laurent, and Kim Lane Scheppele. 2017. Western Democracy. London: Verso. “Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backsliding in the Mares, Isabela, and Lauren E. Young. 2019. EU.” Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies 19: Conditionality and Coercion: Electoral Clientelism in 3–47. Eastern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pech, Laurent, and Patryk Wachowiec. 2020. “1460 Days Markowski, Radoslaw. 2018. “Backsliding into Later: Rule of Law in Poland R.I.P. (Part I).” Authoritarian Clientelism: The Case of Poland.” In Verfassungsblog.de (https://verfassungsblog.de/1460- Democracy Under Stress. Changing Perspectives on days-later-rule-of-law-in-poland-r-i-p-part-i/).

15

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292 Articles | The EU’s Enfants Terribles

Pehe, Jiří. 2018. “Explaining Eastern Europe: Czech Sitter, Nick, and Elisabeth Bakke. 2019. “Democratic Democracy Under Pressure.” Journal of Democracy 29 Backsliding in the European Union.” In Oxford (3): 65–77. Research Encyclopedia of European Union Politics, Politico. 2019. “Czech Prosecutor Reopens Babiš Subsidy ed. Finn Laursen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fraud Case.” December 5. (https://www.politico.eu/ Sitter, Nick, Agnes Batory, Joanna Kostka, Andrea article/czech-prosecutor-reopens-andrej-babis-subsidy- Krizsan, and Violetta Zentai. 2016. Mapping fraud-case/). Backsliding in the European Union. TransCrisis Report Reuters. 2019. “Czechs Protest against PM Babis after 6.1. Budapest: Central European University. Damning EU Report.” December 10. (https:// Sitter, Nick, Agnes Batory, Andrea Krizsan, and Violetta www.reuters.com/article/us-czech-politics/czechs- Zentai. 2017. “Backsliding in Area of Constitutional protest-against-pm-babis-after-damning-eu-report- Safeguards and Independent Institutions, Corruption idUSKBN1YE2D0). Control, and General Equality and Minorities.” Roberts, Andrew. 2003. “Demythologising the Czech TransCrisis Report 6.2. Budapest: Central European Opposition Agreement.” Europe-Asia Studies 55(8): University. 1273–303. Spáč, Peter. 2014. “The 2012 Parliamentary Elections in Roháč, Dalibor. 2017. “No, the Czech Republic Has Not Slovakia.” Electoral Studies 33:343–46. Turned into an Illiberal Democracy.” October 22. Spiegel. 2012. “Fico's Huge Majority in Slovakia Vote is American Enterprise Institute. (http://www.aei.org/ ‘Dangerous.’” March 12. publication/no-the-czech-republic-has-not-turned- Szczerbiak, Aleks. 2016. “An Anti-Establishment into-an-illiberal-democracy/). Backlash that Shook Up the Party System? The October Rosenberger, Sigelinde K. 2003. “Le populisme au povoir: 2015 Polish Parliamentary Election.” European Politics le cas de l’Autriche.” In La tentation populiste au Coeur and Society 18(4): 404–27. de l’Europe, ed. Olivier Ihl, Janine Chéne, Éric Vian, Szomolányi, Soňa. 1999. Kľukatá cesta Slovenska k and Ghislain Waterlot. Paris: Éditions La Découverte. demokracii. Bratislava: Stimul. Rupnik, Jacques. 2007. “Is Central Europe Backsliding: Taggart, Paul. 2000. Populism. Buckingham: Open From Democracy Fatigue to Populist Backlash.” University Press. Journal of Democracy 18(4): 17–25. TASR. 2019. “Pellegrini Doesn’t Agree with How Smer- Scheppele, Kim Lane. 2016. “Can Poland Be Sanctioned SD Behaved in Election of Judges.” February 15. by the EU? Not Unless Hungary Is Sanctioned Too.” Učeň, Peter. 2007. “Parties, Populism, and Anti- Verfassungsblog.de. (https://verfassungsblog.de/can- Establishment Politics in East Central Europe.” SAIS poland-be-sanctioned-by-the-eu-not-unless-hungary- Review 27(1): 49–62. is-sanctioned-too/). Urbinati, Nadia. 2011. Prima e dopo: La brutta china della Scheppele, Kim Lane. 2018. “Autocratic Legalism.” democrazia italiana. Roma: Donzelli. University of Chicago Law Review 85(2): 545–84. Vachudova, Milada Anna. 2005. Europe Undivided: Scheppele, Kim Lane, Laurent Pech, and R. Daniel Democracy, Leverage, and Integration after Communism. Kelemen. 2018. “Never Missing an Opportunity to Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miss an Opportunity: The Council Legal Service Vachudova, Milada Anna. 2019. “From Competition to Opinion on the Commission’s EU Budget-Related Polarization in Central Europe: How Populists Change Rule of Law Mechanism.” Verfassungsblog.de/. Party Systems and the European Union.” Polity 51(4): (https://verfassungsblog.de/never-missing-an- 689–706. opportunity-to-miss-an-opportunity-the-council-legal- Vagovič, Marek. 2016. Vlastnou hlavou. Ako predal Fico service-opinion-on-the-commissions-eu-budget- krajinu oligarchom. Bratislava: Premedia. related-rule-of-law-mechanism/). Valášek, Tomáš. 2012. “Oh No, Orban Clone? The EU Sedelmeier, Ulrich. 2014. “Anchoring Democracy from Ponders Slovak Elections.” London: Centre for European Above? The European Union and Democratic Reform. (https://www.cer.eu/insights/oh-no-orban- Backsliding in Hungary and Romania after Accession.” clone-eu-ponders-slovak-elections). Journal of Common Market Studies 52(1): 105–21. Waldner, David, and Ellen Lust. 2018. “Unwelcome Sedelmeier, Ulrich. 2017. “Political Safeguards against Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Democratic Backsliding in the EU: The Limits of Backsliding.” Annual Review of Political Science 21: Material Sanctions and the Scope of Social Pressure.” 93–113. Journal of European Public Policy 24(3): 337–51. Zemandl, Eva. 2017. “Political Servants, Professional Sitter, Nick. 2011. “Absolute Power? Hungary Twenty Guardians, or Both? Political Appointees in Years after the Fall of Communism.” In 20 Years since Independent Organizations under the Fidesz-KDNP the Fall of the Berlin Wall, ed. Elisabeth Bakke and Ingo Supermajority in Hungary (2010–14).” PhD Peters. Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag. dissertation, Central European University.

16 Perspectives on Politics

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 30 Sep 2021 at 12:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592720001292